Merchants present people with bills or accounts that often comprise multiple charges and transactions. Examples include hotel bills, restaurant bills, telephone bills, credit card bills and car hire bills. While the person who receives the account (i.e., the account receiver) is responsible for paying the bill, the account receiver may wish to recover part of the cost of paying the bill from one or more third parties (third party payer). For example, where several people share accommodation and there is a fixed telephone line, the account receiver will typically settle the account with the phone company and at the same time attempt to recover some of the charges from third party payers, said third party payers being others sharing the accommodation and using the phone. All parties would typically pay a percentage of the line rental charge and be responsible for payment of the itemized calls they have made.
For the account receiver, several issues exist. For example, the account receiver may not receive immediate payment from third party payers for some time after the account is due, resulting in the account receiver making payment out of pocket. As another example, the account receiver may also consume time making repeated attempts to have the third party payer make payment. As yet another example, there is also the problem of multiple, possibly incompatible payment instruments available to the third party payers.
Thus, there is a need for a method and system that alleviates at least one of the aforementioned current difficulties in processing accounts.